JOHN BROWN: Hello.
And welcome to another video from the Webmaster Conference
Lightning Talk Series, a video series
which brings you shortened, but still information-packed
talks we normally deliver at Webmaster Conferences
around the world.
In this video, we'll cover a topic
that's not directly related to Google search,
but which is often interesting to publishers.
I will share with you why we at Google Trust and Safety
create and enforce publisher policies
and how that helps to protect the digital advertising
ecosystem.
Hi.
I'm John, and I lead our outreach efforts,
representing the publisher policy team.
Before we begin, I'd like to provide some background
on the team I work with, the Trust and Safety Team.
This group creates and enforces policies,
influences product excellence, identifies abuse patterns,
and strives to increase safety and trust
for the entire digital advertising ecosystem.
To us, success looks like this.
All are treated equally and find value
in their interactions with Google.
We try to strike a balance, help publishers
earn revenue and help advertisers
distribute their messaging.
But this is difficult. To be successful,
we have to be good at this balancing act.
With enforcement, sometimes advertisers
may think that we don't go far enough, while publishers
may think we go too far.
When we create these policies, we
must keep the needs of the entire industry in mind.
We constantly review our policies and our enforcement
to be fair and thorough, while being
mindful of societal changes and newsworthy global events.
With content policies, strengthening our controls
on what content publishers can monetize initially
can seem like we're punishing publishers
while benefiting advertisers, but it's
important for our industry.
With traffic policies over many years
and after analyzing vast amounts of data,
we've developed and utilized over 180 signals
and filters to help defend our network.
We also give controls to publishers and advertisers
to help them make the right decisions for their businesses.
For example, we've added controls for both publishers
and advertisers, to give both more granular category options.
And we've modified the way that we create and enforce policies
to better protect the ecosystem, as well as to better
help publishers.
Recently, we've made an effort to align our content
policies across all of Google.
This includes AdSense, AdMob, and Google Ad Manager.
We did this with the goal of creating a simpler
experience for publishers.
Along with this alignment, we've changed a number of policies
to restrictions, which removes demonetization
for certain types of content.
However, we do indicate to publishers
that limited ad serving may be in place.
With restrictions, advertisers determined demand,
or lack thereof.
And we make clear which types of content
we will never monetize, again, with the goal of simplifying
the publisher experience.
Let's look at an example of how our policies worked
before the launch of restrictions
and how they work now.
Before the change, alcohol content was a policy
and is now a restriction.
As a policy, any site that facilitated the online sale
of alcohol or promoted alcohol consumption
or portrayed alcohol in a favorable light,
would not be monetized.
Now, as a restriction, we understand
that advertisers may not find this content to be appealing
or a good association with their brand.
However, we let them decide.
Our advertisers have a number of categories
that they can choose from and not all will opt into alcohol.
Therefore, the end result is content label
as a restriction may receive limited or no monetization.
However, it is no longer a policy violation.
These changes are the result of our constant dialogue
with publishers and trying to blend the needs of publishers
with those of the ecosystem as a whole.
You can find more information on both our policies
and restrictions within our Help Center.
Both are broken out and describe the types of content
that fall into policy or restriction categories.
So you now know the work of our team
and what we are trying to achieve.
Let's look at how automation and human review
work together to enforce these policies.
First, we review new publisher applications
at the time of application.
And then, we continuously review existing publisher content
all the time.
Our review includes the utilization
of automated systems, as well as human review.
And with our robust systems infrastructure,
we can process vast amounts of data in seconds.
Automated review is how we can protect the network at scale,
from the simple as well as the highly sophisticated threats,
including click jacking, malware, and cookie stuffing.
So how does content and traffic policy enforcement
benefit publishers?
The most important benefit is this.
We have high standards.
Not only do publishers have to have good traffic
to be part of our network, they also
have to follow our policies.
And these policies help ensure that we are selective.
We reject 88% of all applications
to join our network.
Publishers that follow the rules benefit
from not sharing advertiser dollars
with publishers that do not meet our policy standards.
We also have high standards with the advertisers we work with.
In 2013, we rejected 2.3 billion ads
and blocked nearly 59 million ads.
We introduced 31 new ad policies to address abuse.
And we've removed more than 6 million bad sites
and apps per day.
All of these policies and policy enforcement
ultimately benefits the good publishers in our network.
What are some best practices that you
can implement to grow your business
in a sustainable and policy-compliant way?
First, set up your account correctly.
Segment what is your own responsibility versus what
is managed by your publisher partners.
Vet the publishers you partner with to minimize risk.
Are you partnering with a real business?
Make sure you answer these questions
for each and every publisher you onboard.
Who is this publisher?
Do they have a business address?
Does the address match with what you
know about the publisher, the app, or the website,
and the who is information?
How long have they been working on the app or the website?
Who are the people behind the business?
Do I trust them?
What is your business model?
Does this site offer value to its users or advertisers?
And what are their traffic projections?
And are they realistic?
If something doesn't add up to you, you need to investigate.
Review your partners regularly, especially newcomers
to the network.
Schedule regular business reviews to analyze inventory
that you've purchased.
If there is a revenue spike, check UGC or implementation
issues.
If your partner is reluctant or unable to explain anomalies,
they may pose a significant risk to your network.
And understand your analytics.
Monitor your traffic and understand
what normal traffic patterns for your site look like.
Proactive traffic monitoring can identify small issues
before they become serious trouble.
And break down your traffic reports
into meaningful segments or channels.
Lastly, we encourage publishers to become
familiar with the work of industry groups,
like the IAB and TAG.
At Google, we actively engage with industry groups
through partnerships and collaborations.
We believe that the entire industry should adopt policy
best practices for invalid traffic, advertising
implementations, and content.
And that's why we've teamed up with the IAB and TAG
on various initiatives.
I hope all of this background has been helpful.
What should you expect from my team going forward?
We will continue to invest in transparency.
We do this through face to face meetings
with publishers of all sizes at global conferences and events
and through the creation of materials, such as videos,
such as this one you're watching.
Additional specific policy videos
can be found on our AdSense and AdMob YouTube channels.
These videos go into some depth explaining individual policies.
We iterate on our AdSense and AdMob help centers
to make them more useful.
We create blog posts for our AdSense and AdMob blogs,
to help explain policies and best practices.
And we utilize social media.
We understand the challenges you face, because we speak to you
and we listen.
As alluded to in the breakout of certain policies,
to change certain topics to restrictions,
this was all the result of feedback from our publishers.
We listen and, importantly, we take that feedback to the team.
So continue to dialogue with us.
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